


Thirteen

by sparklight



Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-21
Updated: 2013-12-30
Packaged: 2018-01-05 08:21:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1091707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparklight/pseuds/sparklight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of short drabbles regarding various constellations of the Thirteen's relationships, and their natures as can be read from those constellations. No particular continuity precisely, but definitely not compliant with most of the Covenant of Primus book.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Solus and Megatronus

Their friendship and understanding came from a raw sort of joy that they shared in the interplay of creation and destruction - not Quintus' sort of creation, which relied on high-minded philosophy and a naive form of appreciation of life for life itself. No, Solus' created with the intent of use, broke the raw materials out of the ground - destroyed where they came from - and then reshaped them into tools with purpose.

Creation.

Destruction.

Entropy and creation was an intimate twirl of _being_ , and they helped each other further each of those things. Even when Megatronus felt the others didn't understand and even attributed a sinister intent to him that could not be found in raw, base entropy, Solus was there and he let her be. 

Solus was patient, until her temper caught her, and those arguments were more terrible than when Megatronus and Prima clashed.

Prima didn't understand entropy, because order couldn't see it - it was a pattern within order, but the light of creation blotted the pattern out and Megatronus was a dark shadow that was easy to accuse because it looked like the unnecessary disruption of that light (despite the fact that all light casts a shadow). A disruption that, superficially, seemed much like...

Chaos.

And chaos was one thing they all reviled.

And so Solus usually had to interfere before those fundamental differences in _point of view_ escalated, and then try to keep Megatronus from leaving in a sullen rage.

A rage that she could usually soothe, but a rage that nonetheless invited whispers.

Because entropy, while not chaos, was something a being as complex as the Chaos Bringer had a hand in.

The end result, if not the meaning.

And in the end, as entropy destroyed itself and was recreated as an avatar of sinister _unmaking_ far beyond even chaos, she was the first to name him for what he had become.

Fallen.

Fitting, perhaps.


	2. Liege Maximo and Prima

In the light there is a shadow... and see how destruction as things die creates it?

It had been a throw-away comment, a most blasé... _observation_ that Liege had offered Prima, leaning into the first of them with an intimate tilt of his helm as Megatronus went loose on rocks through exercising his inner power. It was the first of such little comments, the beginning of Liege Maximo's position beside the bright light of Primus.

Negativity is a mirror of the positive, and many times an enhanced and twisted version of it. Liege would have said he could have chosen any one of them to settle beside, but Prima - gentle, determined, unbending and most of all _righteous_ \- drew Liege to himself like iron filings to a magnet.

Not that either of them _noticed_ , but that was the truth of it.

And in the beginning, besides Liege's most innocuous redirection of any attention on _him_ and _his nature_ onto Megatronus, there was nothing more to it than that. The two of them played off each other well... very, very well, in fact. Prima might not have thought about it much, but he used Liege's shadow to test his own decisions, sometimes changing them, sometimes coming out all the more strong in his convictions.

Entropy is a pattern within order. Its place sometimes obscured by the riot of creation itself, but that does not mean it doesn't naturally fit in there. On the other hand, the darkness at the back of every loving word, every just decision, every encouraging pat on the shoulder, while in a way opposite, is more truly a negation of it.

A less benign chaos, and while evil is not _unmaking_ , the Chaos Bringer never paid heed to the positive forces of chaos, those who could tear up reality just as much as the negatives. Liege, while he never fell, while he never betrayed his siblings to their creator's opposite, nevertheless was the one closest to Unicron, by dint of his powers and the way he used them.

Revelled in them, really.

And he, just like Megatronus, betrayed them by leaving, though in Liege's case it was due to selfish self-preservation, the conviction that he had another course to take... And the cold, cruel curiosity the result his words would have on the glow in Prima's optics as he made his announcement.


	3. Thirteen and Onyx Prime

Unity doesn't come easy, by simple words or affable personalities; unity comes through hard work and compromise, while still moving forward.

As such, the last of them was one that none of his siblings ever truly... grasped. He was there and he could still the most fierce of disagreements and arguments, stepping into the middle of it with a calm voice and a hand on each and talking.

Talking until the argument was settled and they separated, if not satisfied, then _pacified_ and accepting.

If _asked_ they would say their thirteenth was the bright center which somehow melded them together, but how? They didn't know. And _why_? Silence, and then a shrug.

Their thirteenth simply had that quality.

But such _qualities_ didn't come simply by _being_ , rather requiring sacrifice. Sacrifice that was given through the light contained in the thirteenth's chassis being not purely his own.

Subdivision of the self (different from the act of creation which the First Thirteen had been), wasn't something that was either strange or unfamiliar to Primus. It had been necessary, and Primus hoped that one day, the thirteenth of his first children would be able to live life as himself, without an extra... passenger.

Of course, necessity wouldn't have superseded free will and choice - had the sacrifice of allowing the light of their creator inside himself not been made, Primus would have accepted that, and, in the end, the story and course of events would have been different.

As it was, however, the thirteenth was too young, too inexperienced to unite by pure _presence_ , and knew he had things to learn. Things he hoped to learn, but which he couldn't learn by jeopardising his siblings. So while he was present, experiencing the first steps of the cybertronian species along with his siblings, it was not the same as for the others, unfettered and unburdened, and his words were often not his own.

The only one who saw, who _knew_ , was the Beast.

The thirteenth had caught Onyx Prime watching him once as he intervened in an argument between Prima and Megatronus, amber optics narrow and burning. Onyx saw through the muffled blanket the thirteenth's spark and chassis made with the clarity of one who does not bother with rationalisations, with “should be's” or “cannot be's”.

Onyx, being not an animal regardless of what his shape might imply, but a spark far closer to the sublime metaphysical reality that their sparks were, saw.

Saw what _was_ , and knew he could say nothing, since the necessity was obvious.

And so the two could sometimes be found merely sitting quietly at the edge of the Well of All Sparks, the glow outlining them in truth and allowing the thirteenth of them to be, for a moment, not unity, but himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This particular drabble bases itself on an experimental headcanon I was inspired into writing out, partly because I didn't feel like how Thirteen/Optimus was written in the Covenant was very... inspiring, or should be able to keep them together with what was *given*.  
> THIS Thirteen can either be Optimus, or he can be someone else entirely, it doesn't really matter as Primus is technically the "character" at this point in time.


	4. Alpha Trion and Vector Prime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What makes your reality what it is?

The Covenant was a curious record that, since the time Alpha Trion first received it, had changed its shape and mode of entering information many times. Most of the time it was in a shape easily held and understood, and at those times he sometimes found himself entering things into it through the Quill. Things he often couldn't read longer than it took to enter a particular syllable or word - possibilities that burned through him, maybes of futures that weren't history. Not yet.

Other times, it was not so easily held or understood, but he could still _read it_ , flashes of information, of _presents_ or near-pasts that he did not recognise but knew must be real, somewhere, somewhen. The specifics were always lost as soon as the Covenant changed its shape, but the knowledge of the multiplicity of reality, of the many shades history could take, still lingered.

As such, it took Alpha Trion a moment to understand the first time Vector Prime came to him and asked what had happened since he was last present - especially since there'd been no more than half a day since Trion had seen him.

But as he talked, telling Vector of the cycles passed and saw the unfocused, distant sheen in Vector's optics fade for a look firmly focused on _him_ , Alpha Trion began to understand. He glanced through the Covenant as he spoke and told Vector of their past, and as each word passed his lips, the awareness of the present in Vector Prime's optics strengthened.

The events of the present and what has gone on before give reality meaning, and when you find you cannot just survey your own reality and its structure, but the whole of space-time and the other realities contained within if you just step sideways, and that with that sideways step comes _knowledge_ , however vague, of those other realities...

Your own reality may seem harder to grasp.

So history wrapped around the structure of space-time to ensure it kept its contents and awareness of what it was, then and now, and from there Alpha Trion often found himself in the company of Vector, whether or not his sibling was there to simply converse with him or ask for the goings-on of their family, present or past.


	5. Vector Prime and the Fallen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ties that bind... past or present.

He had never thought he'd be the only one left. Though, that wasn't exactly true - Alpha Trion could most often be found where Vector would expect him to be, but that required a moment to step away from his duties, and often even a single such moment was hard to find the _time_ for.

And so he was left in the glittering multi-dimensional hyper-reality that was the multiverse, his only company that which _ought_ to happen, that which _couldn't_ happen, that which _might_ happen... and the bright, livid flame that worked to burn it all into ash for the Chaos Bringer to consume.

Back then, _before_ the step that took them too far, Vector hadn't been close to Megatronus. They had orbited each other slowly and distantly with not much curiosity. They had come together like passing comets to cross blades in a mutual testing of skill and strength, but that was it.

Now, though...

Now, Vector often found himself turning the events over, turning the _Fallen's_ words over and over, trying to see the break, the _inevitability_ \- had Liege been right? - and if it truly was inevitable. He found himself distantly aware of the many times it happened, the variations that led to the truth of the core, and found that even when he did not leave them for the Chaos Bringer, he left all the same.

And it couldn't be right, what the Fallen had said the one time he'd asked, could it?

" _You_ drove me there. Your accusations, Vector. Your beliefs, your acts, about what I was, and what I was capable of!"

Yours, as in all of them. But even if there _was_ a grain of truth in it, a single spark that burned with no falsehood, they were _all_ responsible for what they did. But even so, with Unicron's attention on him, their distance and judgement of him exacerbating whatever tiny sliver of truth there might be in the Chaos Bringer's words...

They had failed and continued to do so, and even as he extended his blade, not in friendly (or not so friendly, sometimes) bouts of stretching their skill together, but vicious, spark-tearing duels where the fate of realities hung on the outcome of those fights...

Even with those, Vector found himself unable to _completely_ turn away, to harden that last flame in his spark that recognised his adversary as what he'd always been, despite doubts, accusations and hard words -

Family.

The optics of the Fallen, however, remained an abyss of consuming fire, and even he probably missed the times his blade slid slightly sideways, not _quite_ rendering the full strength of the blow.

And so they continued, orbiting each other, both more distant and yet far closer than before.


	6. Micronus Prime and the Twelve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Conscience and connection - twelve of them as the last know them from lending his particular power to them.

Having the ability to be so closely bound to and enmeshed with his siblings, Micronus tried to know them all, their particularities, their skills and wishes - so he could know where each might need him to put his foot down.

Micronus liked Solus the best, if only because it was easy to follow her creative process, each piece as it was done and everything carefully, lovingly, put together. It made it easier to suggest changes or to put a boost of power right where and when it was needed when he joined his power with hers. She was also open for discussion about other things than what they were immediately involved in, as long as they didn't _stop_ , and she was always interested in what he might have to say.

Quintus and Alchemist were both all right, and they were always interested in whatever he might suggest or have to say, which made them fun to help simply because they encouraged conversation and involvement. But on the other hand their methods and applications of their skills were somewhat obscure, so half the time he didn't have a clue what he or they were doing or how he was helping them, and sometimes he refused Quintus' requests, but always pointed out _why_ he felt that it was going too far.

There wasn't much Amalgamous wanted or needed help with, but Micronus nonetheless enjoyed spending time with him, though he was easiest to deal with in smaller dosages. Mostly because everybody started to get _suspicious_ after a while when he turned up after one too many a prank that he'd helped Amalgamous with.

Onyx was a curious case where Micronus preferred not to go too deep, not because he _disagreed_ or disliked him, but more because it was so easy to get _lost_. Lost in the intense burn of _now_ as Onyx tore through the sky or raced over the ground, chasing the brief, simple creations of Quintus' as they passed over the rough rock and metal or through the golden tint of the atmosphere. Lost in the swirling sensations of _others_ the few times Onyx asked for a boost to reach _further_ with the Mask. Others which Micronus never knew what they were, or what Onyx got from them, but others that sometimes made it take a while for the immediate surroundings and his own frame to make sense again.

Onyx never begrudged Micronus declining him, but Micronus always felt guilty, so he agreed every now and then - because despite the vast differences, he still enjoyed the way they meshed together, as he could put away much of his thoughts for more immediate _presents_.

The thirteenth of them never asked for Micronus to lend his power and mesh it with his own, merely requested his opinions every now and then, sometimes on simple things, other times on more complicated matters. It was refreshing, but curious, and when asked about it the thirteenth usually merely smiled and shook his helm, saying something about wanting to save such a gift for when it was absolutely necessary.

So far, Micronus had never joined with Nexus either, only his _parts_ , but despite the fact that Nexus was more than the sum of his parts and thus different enough it should warrant a joining on his own, Nexus did not need it, and so did not ask. His power came from each burning thread that joined to create his whole spark, not from an outside source.

The parts, however, not being _less than_ , merely divided, requested or declined the help Micronus could give them as the fancy took them. Breakaway was the hardest to grasp, his focus not necessarily on the present as much as what needed or had to be - destiny, and Micronus sometimes found that extremely frustrating, because "destiny" was such a immaterial concept. Landquake was the most straightforward, accepting help as it weighed against what result he wanted, and how easy it was to reach it - he was also the one Micronus often fell into arguments with, though Topspin was similar. Skyfall and Heatwave were the easiest to get along with.

Vector had only asked Micronus to join with him a few times, and Micronus only knew they went beyond the reach of their reality when so asked. It was... curious, because like when he joined with Onyx, there was a timeless sort of loss, a suspended moment that was as short as connecting himself to Vector and then the next second splitting away - and yet kliks, cycles... one time even days, had passed.

It made him uneasy to loose so much without being able to say anything about it, even though there were never anything pointing towards Vector doing something Micronus would actually be unhappy with having been a part of. Perhaps that was why Vector didn't ask often, and Micronus always agreed.

Alpha Trion, like the thirteenth of them and Nexus, never asked for Micronus' particular assistance, but he did like his insights or comments about things that had happened, another angle offered than what any of the others could give him on any given event. In a way it was a request of Micronus to lend his assistance, but in a different way, and Micronus found he liked it. Even if Alpha Trion was sometimes a bit too dry.

Prima was simple, because Prima hesitated and deliberated for longer than Micronus would have done about asking or agreeing. Micronus might find Prima somewhat overbearing and thinking _too much_ , but at the least he knew any protest or criticism he might have would most probably already had been considered and properly weighed. So while Prima might not be one of the ones Micronus went to to spend any length of time more personally with, he never minded helping him.

When it came to Liege, however... Micronus actually preferred working with Megatronus rather than Liege, for reasons he couldn't really pinpoint.

Megatronus was sullen and surly more often than not, but could be reasonably polite. Even when Micronus interrupted him and pointed something out he usually kept a veneer of being agreeable, though those moments were often close things where Megatronus almost lost his temper. Or actually did and then they ended up yelling at each other, though even so they made up relatively quickly - Micronus could more often than not see that Megatronus ran hotter than his control over his temper did. And despite Micronus probably being _annoying_ , sometimes Megatronus' behavior smoothed out into a rough amiability that didn't just make it clear why Solus liked the mech, but also kept Micronus coming back.

Liege, however... There was no reason for his recalcitrance towards him, as Liege was hardly as rude as Megatronus and Prima liked him. No, he was pleasant, conversant and polite, though every now and then there were comments with a twist Micronus found himself less than comfortable with. In addition, some of Liege's requests for boosts had results Micronus left feeling distinctly... unsettled with, but again, he could never put his finger on why, and so he never refused Liege. 

Perhaps he should have, but despite some part of him obviously picking up on things being _off_ when it came to Liege Maximo, he hadn't listened to them. 

Instead he'd listened to Liege, let him convince him that the things Micronus had reservations about that Liege wanted to do were nothing to worry about, soothed his concerns about some of the things Liege had said, or others had done and he hadn't acted. He'd listened to Liege, though there was never much time to regret that.


End file.
